CS @ HBS

I came back to Israel right after the semester ended, and a week later started the HBS Israel Trek (aka The Most Amazing Thing You Can Do While at HBS :)).

HBS Israel Trek
In what is now a 3-year-old tradition at HBS, the Israeli first year students (all five of us) organized and executed a 10-days trip to Israel for a group of 80 HBS students.

Organizing
We started working on the trek almost at the beginning of the year. The Israeli second year students, who organized a very similar trek last year, helped us a lot along the way. We divided work between us with me being the “trek president” (=the role that nobody else wanted to take), being responsible for overall coordination and communication with the travel agent we worked with in Israel.
The Israel Trek has traditionally enjoyed very high popularity among HBS students, and this year, in a revolutionary decision (yeah!), we decided to double the number of participants in the trek from 40 to 80. After giving an overview presentation about the trek in February, students registered online to the trek at a specific time, on a “first come first serve” basis – meaning that out of the 150 people who registered, we took the first 80. These 80 registered within the first 5 seconds (!) of the registration period… Naturally, by the time the trek began some people cancelled their registration and we replaced them with people from the “waiting list”. The 80 students who came formed a very diverse group, with Jews, Muslim, Christians, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, North- and Latin-Americans, French, Italian, Pakistani, you name it…

While communicating with the participating students, collecting money and answering gazillion questions, we were simultaneously working on the trek’s schedule, arranging dinners in fancy restaurants and finding interesting speakers from the business and political arenas. We were also printing a 50-pages “Travelers Guide”, preparing hats in Israel, buying gifts and many other tasks. It was *a lot* of preparation, but most of it was fun.

Executing
On May 24th the trek started in Tel Aviv, with an awesome “kick off barbecue” somewhere along the Yarkon River. From then, in 9 hectic days, we:

• Toured Tel Aviv and Jaffa
• Visited an air force base
• Met Dr. Orna Berry, former Chief Scientist of Israel and one of the founders of Israel’s venture capital industry
• Visited the Holocaust Museum (Yad Vashem) in Jerusalem
• Toured Jerusalem
• Met Efraim Halevy, former head of the Mossad (Israel’s “CIA” or “MI6″)
• Visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Visited Masada
• Bathed (or rather floated) in the Dead Sea
• Spent two relaxing days in Eilat
• Visited the Baha’i Gardens in Haifa
• Visited Nazareth
• Kayaked in the Jordan River
• Visited the Sea of Galilee
• Visited Iskar facilities in Tefen
• And made it back to Tel Aviv…

As an organizer, this was a very stressful, even nerve-wrecking experience at times. Just think about being responsible for 80 people, not to mention making sure they actually enjoy themselves… thankfully we had two good guides, one on each bus, and great cooperation from everyone involved. According to everyone, the trek went extremely well – and not to blow our own horn, here’s some of the feedback we’ve been getting since the end of the trek:

“I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for organizing the Israel Trek—you did a great job. It was exceptionally well coordinated and incredibly fun. At many times throughout the trip I found myself impressed by the fluidity with which we moved 80 people from place to place, often balancing the “fun” and the “learning” in perfect order. I’m sure it took significant time from all of you over the last several months. Please know that it was noticed, and very much appreciated, by the rest of us.”

“Quick note to thank you very much for the trip! Besides everything everyone has said on how well organized and how much everyone enjoyed it, I wanted to thank you as a Jew. Projects like this, (& branding efforts of the MFA, etc) are the best justice that can be done to Jews inside and outside of Israel. It was really amazing to see the change in the perception people had of us and our country.”

My photo gallery isn’t functioning for some unknown reason, so until it’s back here are a few representative photos:

Listening to the guide in Jerusalem:

Section photo, overlooking Jerusalem:

Modeling Trek hats in Masada:

Section people floating in the Dead Sea:

Group photo at Iskar facilities in Tefen:

To summarize, planning and doing this trek has been one of the most special experiences of my first year at HBS. It made a lot of theoretical things I learned at school this year very real and practical: I learned a ton of leadership lessons by trying to manage a team of very opinionated Israeli students, a marketing lesson by seeing how people’s opinions about Israel change 180 degrees as a result of the trek, and a macro economics lesson by meeting and visiting some of the most interesting companies and business leaders in Israel – not to mention watching the US Dollar being ridiculously devalued against the Israeli Shekel in the last year, making the trek 20% more expensive…
The thing I liked most about the trek is hearing how many people really loved the country and plan to come back or recommend their friends / family to come – it’s great to know that now we’ll have 80 “ambassadors” of Israel scattered all over the world, with many of them in senior business and political positions in the future. Israel could definitely use such friends…

A few words about HBS treks
Traveling is a major part in the life of an HBS student. Many students organize trips to their home countries, often mixing tourism, business and politics, in a similar way we did in the Israel Trek. Other students just go somewhere with a group of friends, for fun (like my section did over spring break when we went to Mexico). The school also organizes trips – in the form of immersions or career treks – I participated in the Las Vegas Trek and the WesTrek. Unlike other business schools, in HBS you can’t do an exchange semester somewhere abroad, so at least the plethora of trips / treks / immersions etc. gives you the possibility to get your passports stamped rather frequently. And of course, learn about business, culture and people in different countries, as appropriate to the global business leaders we’re going to be (rrright).

(* Live in Beit Shemesh, high quality Israeli music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZwgOxFeZ8k)

UPDATE: my gallery is alive again, so here are more photos: http://www.computersexy.com/gallery/v/IsraelTrek_052008/